ERIC Number: ED350252
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1992
Reference Count: N/A
Teacher Efficacy, Empowerment, and a Focused Instructional Climate: Does Student Achievement Benefit?
Moore, William P.; Esselman, Mary E.
This paper reports on a study designed to identify the relationships among the context variables of sense of efficacy, teacher empowerment, and school climate as perceived by 1,802 Kansas City (Missouri) teachers. Factors related to teacher sense of efficacy (teaching efficacy and personal efficacy), to teacher empowerment, defined as the perceived influence of teachers in important decision-making activities, and to school instructional climate and school atmosphere, which include lack of impediments to effective learning and degree of teacher/staff collegiality, were examined. The study also attempted to identify differences in the strength of the relationships across grade levels, to examine the notion of stability of efficacy, and to delineate the extent of the relationship between the three context variables and student achievement (grades one through five). Findings included indications that: (1) efficacy, empowerment, and instructional climate factors differ significantly across schools, levels, and grades; (2) personal and teaching efficacy were highly, although inversely, related; (3) school atmosphere tended to be related to lack of impediments to effective instruction and collegiality among teachers; (4) efficacy was strongly related to both classroom and school decision making; and (5) the contribution of the context variables to achievement differed across levels, grades, and test content. (About half of the document consists of figures and tables.) (IAH)
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers: Kansas City Public Schools MO; Teacher Empowerment
Note: Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association (San Francisco, CA, April 20-24, 1992).